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THE 
DECLINING BIRTH-RATE 



A NEWSHOLME, M.D. 




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THE DECLINING BIRTH-RATE 

ITS NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL 
SIGNIFICANCE 



NEW TRACTS FOR THE TIMES 

TRACTS PUBLISHED 

"The Problem of Race-Regeneration." By Dr. 
Havelock Ellis (Editor, Contemporary Science 
Series, etc.) 

"The Methods of Race-Regeneration." By C. W. 
Saleeby, M.D., F.R.S.E., F.Z.S. (Author of 
"Parenthood and Race Culture," etc.) 

"The Declining Birth-Rate — Its National and Inter- 
n ational Significance." By A. Newsholme, 
M.D. (Principal Medical Officer, Local Gov- 
ernment Board). 

TRACTS IN PREPARATION 

" Literature— The Word of Life or of Death." By 

Rev. William Canon Barry, D.D. 
" Modern Industrialism and Race-Regeneration." 

By C. F. G. Masterman, M.A., M.P. 
"The Problems of Sex." By Prof. J. A. Thomson 

and Prof. P. Geddes. 
"Religion and Race-Regeneration." By Rev. F. B. 

Meyer, D.D. 
"Social Environment and Moral Progress." By 

A. Russel Wallace, O.M., F.R.S., LL.D. 
" National Ideals and Race-Regeneration." By 

Rev. R. F. Horton, M.A., D.D. 
"The Spiritual Life and Race-Regeneration." By 

the Bishop of Durham. 
"Womanhood and Race-Regeneration. " By Mary 

Scharlieb, M.D., M.S. 
" Education and Race-Regeneration." By Sir John 

Gorst, LL.D., K.C., F.R.S. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



N*m ©rartu for tij* ©intra 

THE DECLINING 
BIRTH-RATE: 

ITS NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL 
SIGNIFICANCE 



BY 

ARTHUR NEWSHOLME, M.D., F.R.C.P. 

Principal Medical Officer of the Local Government Board. 
Author of " Elements of Vital Statistics." 




NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 

1911 



m* 



*©) 



tf\ x 



Copyright, 1911, Bt 

MOFFAT, YARD & COiMPANY 

New York 

All Rights Reserved 






©CU30530 



rz 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I A REVIEW OF RATES OF NATURAL IN- 
CREASE OF POPULATIONS 7 

II MEASUREMENT OF FACTORS IN DECLINE 

OF BIRTH-RATE 16 

III COMPARISONS OF BIRTH-RATES IN DIF- 

FERENT COUNTIES AND TOWNS . . 24 

IV CAUSATION OF THE REDUCED BIRTH-RATE 29 
V INDIRECT FACTORS OF THE REDUCED 

BIRTH-RATE 36 

VI POSSIBLE EFFECTS OF ALTERED DISTRI- 
BUTION OF FERTILITY 42 

VII NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL FORE- 
CASTS 53 

VIII SOME POSSIBILITIES OF ACTION .... 58 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

By the 

Eev. James Marchant 

These Tracts might have been called "New Tracts 
for New Times," since they interpret the signs and 
prophecies of a new world in the making, demanding 
the application of loftier ideals, more widely embracing 
principles, and surer methods of advance than have 
hitherto prevailed. They do not merely deplore and 
combat the manifest evils of the past and the present 
changing conditions, but reveal the foundations of a 
richer civilisation. The era of destructive criticism, 
of improving material environment alone, of lavish 
care for a short season of the unfit merely to turn them 
adrift at the critical age, of reliance upon forms and 
drugs, hospitals and penitentiaries, police and prisons 
and upon unfettered liberty to correct its own abuses, 
is mercifully passing away. We are living in a transi- 
tion period, but nearer the future than the past. The 
wonderful nineteenth century seems already to have be- 
come history, and the first decade of the twentieth cen- 
tury has closed. The new spirit of the age, which ap- 
peared in wondrous guise on the horizon at the watch of 
the centuries, is becoming articulate. It is evident to 
all who possess the historic vision that we are living in 
the twilight before the dawn. The rapid, ruthless 



New Tracts for the Times 



progress and verily bewildering discoveries and devel- 
opments of the latter half of the nineteenth century, 
the opening up of virgin fields of reform and of untrod- 
den and unsuspected paths of advance, were heralds of 
a new day, of the nearness of the Kingdom of God. 

These Tracts, small in bulk, but written by eminent 
authors, deal with these profound and commanding 
themes from this inspiring outlook. If they revert to 
outstanding present-day evils, it is because these men- 
ace the future and are a crime against posterity. Ac- 
count is taken of the persistent and ominous demand 
for the divorce of religion from morals and education; 
of the lowering of the ideal of marriage and the sub- 
stitution of a temporary contract for that permanent 
union which is necessary, to take no higher ground, for 
the nurture and education of the next generation; of 
the commercial employment of married women, re- 
sulting, to a serious extent, in the neglect and dis- 
ruption of family life and the displacement and unem- 
ployment of men; and of the economic, social, and sel- 
fish influences which involve late marriages and an ever- 
falling birth-rate. The writers consider the grave and 
urgent questions of the wastage of child-life ; the weak- 
ening and pollution of the link between the generations ; 
and the uncontrolled multiplication of the degenerate, 
who threaten to swamp in a few generations the purer 
elements of our race. They examine the disquieting 
signs of physical deterioration; the prevalence of vice, 
the increase of insanity and feeble-mindedness, and 
their exhaustless drain upon free-flowing charity and 



General Introduction 



the national purse; the wide circulation of debasing 
books and papers which imply the existence, to a de- 
plorable extent, of low ideals amongst a multitude of 
readers; and some of the manifold evils of our indus- 
trial system which cause the hideous congestion of slum- 
dom with its irreparable loss of the finer sensibilities, 
of beauty, sweetness and light. These and like griev- 
ous ills of the social body are treated in the "New 
Tracts for the Times," from the moral and spiritual 
standpoint, by constructive methods of redemption, with 
the knowledge of our corporate responsibility and in re- 
lation to their bearing on the future of the race. 

The supreme and dominant conception running 
through these Tracts is the Regeneration of the Race. 
They strike not the leaden note of despair, but the 
ringing tones of a new and certain hope. The regen- 
erated race is coming to birth; the larger and nobler 
civilisation is upon us. It is already seen that it is 
criminal to live at the expense of the future, that chil- 
dren must be wisely and diligently educated for parent- 
hood, that vice must be sapped at its foundations, that 
it is much more radically necessary to improve the con- 
dition of the race through parentage than through 
change of environment, that the emphasis must shift 
from rescue to prevention. These Tracts turn the 
searchlight of the twentieth century upon such problems 
and seek to hasten the time when true religion will oc- 
cupy its rightful place in our human lives, and woman 
her true place in the home and society, and industry 
will not deaden and demoralise, and life will be happier, 



New Tracts for the Times 



sweeter and holier for every man, woman and 
child. 

These Tracts must awaken a sensitive, enlightened 
social conscience throughout Great and Greater Britain, 
which is being welded into a more compact Empire, and 
give voice and new life to the long-silent and thwarted 
aspirations for a regenerated humanity. 

In their several ways, the authors of these "New 
Tracts for the Times," each being alone responsible 
for his or her own contribution, adopt this bracing 
and hopeful attitude towards the transcendent prob- 
lems which it is the object of the promoters to eluci- 
date. 

J. M. 

National Council of Public Morals, 

Holborn Ball, London, W. C. 

September, 1911. 



The Declining Birth-Rate: 

ITS NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL 
SIGNIFICANCE 

CHAPTER I 

A REVIEW OF RATES OF NATURAL INCREASE OF POPULA- 
LATIONS 

The birth-rate of a population is usually stated in 
terms of the total population. This is the best method 
of statement, if we are concerned only with registering 
the actual annual contribution of the population to the 
next generation. By substracting from the birth-rate 
thus calculated the death-rate in the same population 
similarly calculated, we can ascertain the annual rate, 
if any, at which the population is increasing by excess 
of births over deaths, i.e. by natural increase. 

NATURAL INCREASE OF POPULATION 

It is convenient to state here certain international 
facts as to the annual rate of natural increase in some 
of the countries, which possess a sufficiently accurate 
system of registration of births and deaths to enable 
this to be given. The rates are taken from the Annual 
Report of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and 
Marriages in England and Wales, 1909 : — 

7 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



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France 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



It will be observed that, while the rate at which 
natural increase occurs depends on the relationship be- 
tween the birth-rate and the death-rate, in past experi- 
ence the effect of high or low birth-rates in some in- 
stances has been more or less counterbalanced by high 
or low death-rates. Thus Hungary, with the highest 
birth-rate among the countries enumerated in the table, 
had in 1881-85 a much lower rate of increase than 
Australasia; so likewise Prussia during the same pe- 
riod, with a considerably higher birth-rate, had a mucn 
lower rate of natural increase than England and Wales. 
In 1901-05 a general decline of death-rates is seen to 
have occurred. The decline of the birth-rate may con- 
ceivably continue until no births occur; death-rates 
eventually will reach a point beyond which further de- 
cline is unattainable; and already in 1901-05, although 
in most countries this point is still remote, there is 
evidence that the decline in the birth-rate is overtaking 
the decline in the death-rate, with a resultant decline 
in the rate of natural increase. In Germany the bal- 
ance is still to the good, the rate of natural increase be- 
ing higher in 1901-05 than in 1881-85. In England 
and in Scotland the scales have already turned, and 
there is shown a declining rate of natural increase. 
This must not, of course, be confused with a state of 
matters in which the birth-rate is as low as the death- 
rate. France, hitherto, is the only country in which 
this condition has been almost established. In England 
and Wales the rate of natural increase was 12.4 per cent, 
in 1901-11, as compared with 15.1, 14.0, and 12.4 per 
cent, in the preceding inter-censal periods, and the in- 

10 



Rates of Natural Increase 



crease of population by excess of births over deaths in 
the ten years was 4,049,499 persons. 

In most of the countries under comparison there is 
manifested a declining birth-rate. The course of the 
birth-rate in Great Britain is shown more clearly in 
Table B below:— 



TABLE B 





1861-65 


1866-70 


1871-75 


1876-80 


1881-85 


England & Wales 
Scotland 


35.1 
35.1 


35.3 
34.9 


35.5 
35.0 


35.3 

34.8 


33.5 
33.3 




1886-90 


1891-95 


1896- 
1900 


1901-05 


1906-10 


England & Wales 
Scotland 


31.4 
31.4 


30.5 
30.5 


29.3 

30.0 


28.2 
28.9 


26.3 
26.7 



In England and Wales and in Scotland the maximum 
birth-rate occurred in the year 1876, and since then a 
steady and almost uninterrupted decline has occurred 
in both countries. The case of Ireland needs separate 
consideration (pp. 20-21). 

If comparison be confined to years since 1880, the 
years of maximum and minimum birth-rate for the 
countries enumerated in Table A are as follows: — 



11 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



TABLE C 

Maximum Minimum 

Birth-rate. • Birth-rate. 

England and Wales.. 33.9 in 1881 25.1 in 1910 

Scotland 33.7 " 1881 25.2 " 1910 

Ireland 24.5 " 1881 22.3 " 1890 

New South Wales ... 38.4 " 1884 25.3 " 1903 

Queensland 38.1 " 1887 24.6 " 1903 

Victoria 33.6 " 1890 24.5 " 1903 

New Zealand 37.9 " 1881 25.1 " 1899 

Hungary 45.6 " 1884 35.7 " 1905 

Austria 38.9 u 1882 33.5 « 1908 

Spain 37.1 " 1881 32.6 " 1909 

Prussia 37.8 " 1885 31.8 " 1909 

German Empire 37.2 " 1884 32.1 " 1908 

Italy 39.0 " 1884 31.5 " 1907 

Belgium 31.8 " 1881 24.9 " 1908 

France 24.9 " 1881 .19.6 " 1909 

Exact statistics are not available for the United 
States of America, but the decline in the birth-rate 
among its native population is known to be very marked 
(see also p. 27). 

Leaving Ireland out of consideration for the mo- 
ment, it is clear that in Prance a low birth-rate had 
been attained in 1881, which is only now being ap- 
proached in Great Britain and in Belgium. The Ger- 
man Empire, although its birth-rate is also rapidly de- 
clining, began to experience this decline at a later pe- 
riod, and is still, in regard to birth-rate, approximately 

12 



in the position^ wii^^reat Britain occupied in or 
about the yeaj ^8gL.^ 5fe position differs, hovever, in 
the important' iesped^tfiat-it has a death-: "ate about 3 

per thousand <highf^ ^hgi ghat of grgtgBritajin. 

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The Declining Birth-Rate 



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Rates of Natural Increase 



Order of Magnitude of Population of the Great 
Powers 



1850 
Eussia 
France 

Austro-Hungary 
Germany 
United Kingdom 
Italy 
United States 



1880 
Russia 

United States 

Germany 

Austro-Hungary 

France 

United Kingdom 

Italy 



1901 

Eussia 

United States 

Germany 

Austro-Hungary 

United Kingdom 

France 

Italy 



15 



CHAPTER II 

MEASUREMENT OF FACTORS IN DECLINE OF BIRTH-RATE 

A. — Factors for which Arithmetical Correction can be 
made (reduced marriage-rate, 'postponement of mar- 
riage, etc.). — In considering the causes of the decline 
in the birth-rate, it will save confusion of thought and 
render reliable inferences possible if we consider sep- 
arately any changes that have occurred in the fertility 
of the married life * of women of corresponding ages. 
(The corresponding ages of men have not altered to an 
extent which materially affects the problem.) 

The decline in the birth-rate may be due either to: 
(1) postponement of marriage to a higher age, or (2) 
to a decrease in the proportion of the total female popu- 
lation which is of child-bearing age, or (3) to a decrease 
in the proportion of those who enter into matrimony, 
or (4) to a reduced fertility, visible when (1), (2), and 
(3) have been eliminated from the calculation by ap- 
propriate arithmetical allowances. 

* The true rate of fertility is the total output of children 
by women of child-bearing ages, living under conditions in 
which procreation can occur. In the countries under compari- 
son, the illegitimate birth-rate is declining. In England and 
Wales in 1901 only 4 per cent, of the total births were of il- 
legitimate children. In the corrected total birth-rates given 
in the following tables, illegitimate birth-rates (corrected for 
the varying proportion of unmarried women at child-bearing 
ages) are included. 

16 



Measurement of Factors 



(1). That there has been some postponement of mar- 
riage is indicated by the English official figures, which 
show that the mean age at marriage of spinsters has 
increased from 25.08 years in 1896 to 25.73 in 1909. 
This postponement has not been on a sufficiently large 
scale to account for more than a minute proportion of 
the total decline in the birth-rate. There are indica- 
tions that it may become a more important factor in 
the future. 

(2) and (3). y That neither a decrease in the pro- 
portion of women nor in that of wives aged 15-45 has 
caused the decline in the English birth-rate is demon- 
strated by the following figures * : — ■ 



TABLE E 
England and Wales 





Number per 1,000 of total population of 




Females aged 15-45 


Wives aged 15-45 


1871 
1881 
1891 
1901 


231 
231 
238 
250 


115 
113 
112 
117 



y^ 



It is evident that the decline of the national birth- 



* See Table, p. 41, of paper on " Decline of Human Fertility," 
by A. Newsholme and T. H. C. Stevenson. Joum. Roy. Statist. 
Soc, Vol. LXIX., Pt. 1. 1906. 

17 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



rate cannot be explained, except to a minute extent, 
by any of the above three factors. Although there 
has been some postponement of marriage, the propor- 
tion of women and of wives at child-bearing ages has 
increased. It is necessary, however, in making inter- 
national comparisons to eliminate the effect of these 
influences before a corrected birth-rate can be obtained 
which will represent the true rate of fertility of com- 
pared populations. This was done in a paper by the 
writer and by Dr. Stevenson, now of the General Keg- 
ister Office, Somerset House, corrected birth-rates be- 
ing obtained for a number of nations and for many 
parts of the United Kingdom in which the necessary 
arithmetical allowances were made both for the ages 
and the number of the wives in the compared popula- 
tions. As this correction is merely a question of arith- 
metic, it is only necessary to refer the reader for de- 
tails of the method employed in making it to the paper 
already quoted. The corrected rates thus obtained are 
employed in the following pages. 



TABLE F 

Total Bieth-Eates 

Ireland and France as illustrating the difference between 
crude birth-rates per 1,000 of population and 
corrected birth-rates, which show the actual fer- 
tility, when arithmetical allowance has been made 
for the age-distribution and proportion of married 
18 



Measur£ttfent ri ©&(Pa&<ftC 



and of unmarried ^omen^in^tHe^bomfarid^popvr 
lations. i ^iilii*i9'± 'lov/ot orti oi ion oub 31 

•jo nort-roffnTff 'iwof ?.Y\ 



_^_ 



. 



England and Wales, 

Scotland 

Ireland 

France 



oiJDSTgpjfo^iodY/ 

ronr ™\ *\?, x 



issr 



33.9> 

33^ 

24.ri 

24.9 ' f 



i^abw 



®8^ 



fe 



id 

9 ^ 



"SfelO 



'jqIjiY/" f l liO I 



rlh'nf l-oiOTrinL) 



1881 



ir<»iTi 



34.7 

^39# 

25.1 



i901 ; 



wi'"* 

2I26 fiI 



#1 

Ireland, it will be seen, had, bo^K^n J1881 'and'inr 
1901, a crude birth-rate which wai app^Oximlateiy ) m r 
low as the abnormally low birth-rat© - ' oi ] France. Buti 
when correction is made for the facls^st&ftedf inf- i «tHte> 
following table, a totally different conclusion ^eaii%e 
drawn as to the relative fertility of th© populations^ of 
Ireland and France. i C BM^oSodtaq 

TABLE G- Q fIoiJB3UBO 9f{T 



England and Wales. 

Scotland 

Ireland 

France 



1901 ' m9rj 

No.per 1,000 of t^al 

population of >.<■ 



Females 

Aged 

15-45 



250 
242 
235 

227 



WivW l 
Age&W 
15-4$ J; 



91 od [Jiw 
Wives aged 

15-45 per 
cent, of all 
fem&VeVtif 
\ same age 

flJS b91JJ99S 



117 

102 

77 

119 



46.8 

32.5 
52.5 



19 



Tfefo£e€ifcingri£re$itolkte 



-j^e^M-fc^w-oiis^i-m'te^^vslsio^W-i'ii the above table, 
is due not to the lower fertility of its population, but 
t o its lower proportion of married women at child- 
beara$i®3-&g§s. When^awectio a is made for this, the 
p orrpH-prl hirt.h - rat.fi for 1901 ; showing the true fer- 
tiliigef :>fi£fce j)opodati)niggii I -eland, becomes 36.1 in- 
st^ol 1&WP>^EMR qfg&opulation. 
|B§£-' ' JS£a($liie $®$liolo$$£ue " — On the other hand, 



Flange is$g$n fto^l^ve pgrj_|,000 of total population a 
larjggg pr qpggt long gfgwivgs^ aged 15-45 than there are 
i n England and Waloo; bu t its corrected birth-rate in 
MK)I>dSBai88flyn^lifeda^bPO m pared with 28.4 for Eng- 
laaad^I^fe^nWdi^B Uncorrected birth-rate of 21.6 com- 
]te®s mM%Tlnf^v©^a^ly still with the corrected rate 

9<8?mmenbi?afb£mtj&ie best example of a pathological 

teifeoidtejni^qttostnse in which the term (" natalite 

pathologique") is used by Dr. Jacques Bertillon, the 

head of the Statistical Bureau of the City of Paris. 

The causation of th is fallen birth-rate, from which it 

will be reinember^ we have eliminated the influence 

^JV^M^5ng«X)poflftions of married women at child- 

p^ges, failfc be considered in a subsequent para- 

^lean^wj^e, additional facts may be given 

skqwiB^tia^^Erance does not stand alone in having 

alfadr maHy low birth-rate. 

Til 

itions in which child-bearing can occur. 



m 



secured an 



8.3£ 
fe^ Und 
S.SS 
5.S5 



e 



20 



Measurement of Factors 



TABLE H 

Comparison of Corrected Total Birth-rates, 

1881 and 1901 (or Approximate Years) 



England and Wales. 

Scotland 

Ireland 

New South Wales . 

Victoria 

New Zealand 

Austria 

Prussia 

German Empire . . . 

Italy 

Belgium 

France 







Relative 


1881 


1901 


Birth- 


Birth- I 






rate in 






1881 






stated as 






100 


34.7 


28.4 


100 


39.3 


33.4 


100 


35.2 


36.1 


100 


38.8 


26.5 


100 


36.0 


27.0 


100 


36.7 


29.6 


100 


39.0 


38.5 


100 


39.9 


35.7 


100 


40.4 


35.3 


100 


36.9 


33.7 


100 


40.8 


31.0 


100 


25.1 


21.6 


100 



Birth- 
rate in 
1901 

82 
85 
103 
68 
75 
81 
99 
90 
87 
91 
76 
86 



Ireland alone among the countries enumerated in 
Table H shows a slightly increased fertility. Its low 
" crude " birth-rate is entirely explained by the fact 
that emigration, especially to the United States, has 
left the motherland with a very small proportion of 

21 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



married women of child-bearing ages. Those married 
women who remain in Ireland are adding to the popu- 
lation at a much higher rate than the corresponding 
population in England. There is behind this the fact, 
suggestive of adverse economic conditions, that in 1901 
only 32.5 per cent, of the women in Ireland aged 15-45 
were wives, as compared with 46.8 per cent, in England 
and Wales. It may be hoped that the results of the 
census of April, 1911, when published, will show an 
increased proportion of wives among the women at these 
ages. 

The decline in birth-rate in the other countries enu- 
merated in Table H, varies greatly. Thus, in New 
South "Wales the birth-rate in 1901 was 32 per cent, and 
in Victoria was 25 per cent, lower than in 1881. In 
Belgium it was 24 per cent., in New Zealand 19 per 
cent., in England 18 per cent., and in Scotland 15 per 
cent, lower than 20 years earlier. In the German Em- 
pire it was 13 per cent., and in France 14 per cent, 
lower than at the earlier period. 

The significance of these percentages differs, for it will 
be seen that the 14 per cent, reduction in France was on 
a corrected birth-rate which in 1881 had already fallen 
to 25.1, while that of the German Empire in the same 
year was 40.4 per 1,000 of population. 

I have preferred to utilise corrected birth-rates in the 
above comparisons, although this, owing to the lack of 
completely corrected data more recent than those con- 
tained in the paper already quoted, has necessitated a 
comparison between birth-rates thirty and ten years 
ago respectively. A glance at the more recent crude 

22 



Measurement of Factors 



birth-rates given in Table A will show, however, that 
the decline of birth-rate continues, and a study of all 
the available figures shows that this decline is gradually 
affecting countries which were outside its range in the 
earlier years of comparison. 



CHAPTER III 

COMPARISONS OF BIRTH-RATES IN DIFFERENT COUNTIES 
AND TOWNS 

The following Table, the data for which have been 
taken from the paper by Dr. Stevenson and the writer, 
to which reference has already been made, shows the 
birth-rate in different Counties of England and Wales, 
after correction has been made for variations in ages 
and proportion of married women to the total popula- 
tion in each County : — 

TABLE I 

Corrected Birth-rates, 1901 (England and 
Wales 28.4) 

England — 

Bedfordshire 26.1 Dorsetshire 28.1 

Berkshire 28.0 Durham 33.0 

Buckinghamshire .. 29.8 Essex 28.7 

Cambridgeshire .... 28.3 Gloucestershire .... 27.5 

Cheshire 28.3 Hampshire 26.1 

Cornwall 26.2 Herefordshire 31.2 

Cumberland 32.9 Hertfordshire 28.6 

Derbyshire 29.2 Huntingdonshire . . 30.1 

Devonshire 25.2 Kent 27.0 

24 



Comparisons of Birth-Rates 



Lancashire 28.0 

Leicestershire 27.1 

Lincolnshire 28.0 

London 26.8 

Middlesex 28.2 

Monmouthshire 34.2 

Norfolk 28.7 

Northamptonshire . . 25.9 

Northumberland ... 31.2 

Nottinghamshire . . . 30.2 

Oxfordshire 28.6 

Rutlandshire 27.0 

Shropshire 33.2 



Somersetshire 27.6 

Staffordshire 31.5 

Suffolk 29.9 

Surrey 26.6 

Sussex 25.0 

Warwickshire 28.5 

Westmorland 28.2 

Wiltshire 28.5 

Worcestershire 28.4 

Yorkshire 27.5 

North Riding 31.8 

East Riding 28.4 

West Riding 26.8 



Wales — ■ 

North Wales 30.9 

South Wales (excluding Glamorganshire) 33.5 

Glamorganshire 32.1 



The highest corrected birth-rates were in the counties 
of Monmouth and Shropshire, the lowest in Sussex and 
Devon. 

A comparison of recent and of past birth-rates can 
be made embracing some of the chief cities and towns 
in civilised countries possessed of accurate statistics. 
In order that some idea may be obtained of the con- 
tinuance of the decline beyond the period for which 
corrected rates can be given, crude birth-rates are given 
for 1881 and 1901 and for 1910:— 



25 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



TABLE J 
Comparison of Corrected Birth-rates in 1881 and 
1901, and of Crude Birth-rates in those years 
and in 1910. 



London 

Manchester 

Liverpool 

Birmingham 

Edinburgh 

Glasgow 

Dublin 

Belfast 

Berlin 

Hamburg 

Paris 

Providence, U. S. A.*. 



Crude Birth-rates 



1881 1901 1910 



34.7 
36.9 
37.6 
37.2 
32.0 
37.3 
32.1 
33.4 

38.1 
37.4 
27.6 
26.5 



28.5 
32.1 
33.4 
31.8 
35.1 
31.9 
31.5 
32.2 

24.8 
26.9 
20.6 
26.0 



25.5 
27.4 
31.1 
28.5 
19.6 
25.1 
28.3 
27.8 

21.5 
23.2 

18.0 



Corrected 
Birth-rates 



1881 1901 



32.2 
32.9 
32.5 
34.2 
35.0 
36.3 
32.2 
34.7 

33.1 
35.0 
23.3 
21.1 



26.8 
29.2 
30.8 
28.6 
28.1 
32.0 
35.4 
34.0 

21.9 
25.4 
16.7 
23.1 



* Comparison of 1875 and 1900. 



It will be more convenient to discuss certain aspects 
of the above city birth-rates at a later stage. It suffices 
here to draw attention to the remarkable experiences 
of Britain, Hamburg, and Providence, Bhode Island. 
The two great cities of Germany are seen to be rapidly 
following in the footsteps of Paris in reduction of fer- 
tility, and there appears to be much likelihood that ere 



Comparisons of Birth-Rates 



long their birth-rates, like that of Paris, will be nearly 
as low as their death-rates.* It is unfortunate that 
registration of births is absent or defective in the 
greater part of the United States. In parts of New 
England the statistics available enable a comparison to 
be made between the native-born and foreign-born popu- 
lations. The following table, taken from the joint 
paper already quoted, shows some of the results: — 

TABLE K 
Corrected Legitimate Birth-rates 

Boston, 1900 Providence, 1900 

Native-born 18.2 16.0 

Foreign-born 31.1 31.1 

Evidently the fertility of the native-born populations 
of these cities is little, if any, greater than that of 
Paris ; and they may be said, like Paris, to have arrived 
at a position of stagnation of population, if not of ac- 
tual decrease, apart from immigration. 

In the preceding summary of well-ascertained facts 
as to the birth-rate in this and other countries, an en- 
deavour has been made to handle the available material 
methodically, and to lift the explanation or explana- 
tions of the decline in birth-rate which has been already 
experienced out of the region of conjecture and im- 
pression. 

* In the five years 1906-10 the average birth-rate of Paris 
was 18.3, the corresponding death-rate 17.5 per 1,000 of popu- 
lation. 

27 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



As the proportion of illegitimate births is small, fer- 
tility is chiefly a function of married life. Malthus, 
in 1796, advocated postponement of, or abstinence from, 
marriage as a means of checking the risks involved in 
the alleged tendency of population to multiply more 
rapidly than the means of subsistence. The rate at 
which the population multiplies by excess of births 
over deaths is now steadily slackening, although, as 
shown in the previous pages, this is not to any con- 
siderable extent due to diminished or postponed matri- 
mony. It must, therefore, be caused by diminution in 
the fertility of married life, and, it may be added, to 
a less extent, by diminution of illegitimate births. By 
means of the corrected birth-rates given in the previous 
pages, differences in various communities caused by 
varying proportions of wives at child-bearing ages have 
been eliminated; and it has been shown that in most 
civilised communities there has occurred a real and 
marked reduction in the fertility of marriage. 



28 



CHAPTEE IV 

CAUSATION OP THE REDUCED BIRTH-RATE 

We may now pursue our review of the historical facts 
as to the fertility, having removed from the statistics 
the disturbing influence of variations in ages and in 
proportion of married women of child-bearing ages to 
the total population. 

The reason for making this preliminary correction 
will not be misunderstood. Postponement of marriage 
and avoidance of marriage, when they occur on a large 
scale, are serious sociological indications. It is con- 
ceivable that the size of families of married persons 
might be kept up to the high figures of 1880 and there- 
abouts, and yet that marriage might become so unpopu- 
lar — or be regarded as so economically disadvantageous 
— that the birth-rate declined rapidly, because compara- 
tively few persons married. But that is not the his- 
torical state of matters with which we have to deal. 
Postponement and avoidance of marriage have had little 
share in causing the reduced birth-rate experienced in 
this and some other countries during the last twenty 
years. There has been a great decline of fertility when 
women of equal age and marital condition in a coun- 
try are compared with the women of the same country 
twenty years earlier. 

It is possible, however, that in the future the present 
smaller families in married life may be followed by re- 

29 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



volt against the marriage tie among a larger propor- 
tion of the total population, though it is beyond the 
scope of this paper to do more than note this tendency. 
It being established that for equal numbers of mar- 
ried women of child-bearing ages, the number of chil- 
dren in various countries and in many parts of the 
United Kingdom is much fewer than in the past, it 
remains to be seen whether any recognisable direct in- 
fluence has been at work, which has tended to lower 
the birth-rate; and what are the indirect influences, 
which may be considered as having affected the birth- 
rate, such as economic and social conditions, habits of 
life, and possibly education and occupation. 

THE INFLUENCE OF INCREASED NUTRITION 

It is a commonplace observation that children are 
often fewer in well-to-do than in poorly-circumstanced 
families. The poor curate and the labourer alike are 
examples quoted in this connection, in contrast with 
those endowed with wealth. Few systematic attempts 
have been made to place observations of this kind on 
a firm basis, and although it is possible that over-nutri- 
tion may lessen fertility, it is incredible that a condi- 
tion of increased nutrition can have become so widely 
prevalent as to be competent to produce the national 
and international changes in fertility set out in pre- 
ceding pages. 

The exact extent to which the so-called "True Law 
of Population," enunciated in Doubleday's book, pub- 
lished in 1841, under this title, operates must be still 

30 



Causes of Reduction 



a matter of conjecture. It is extremely unlikely that 
his statement to the effect that throughout both the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms 

"Over-feeding checks increase; whilst, on the 
other hand, a limited or deficient nutriment 
stimulates and adds to it" 

is anything more than a fragment of truth. So far as 
the vegetable kingdom is concerned, it is, within certain 
limits, contrary to experience, carefully tested experi- 
mentally. No such self-rectifying arrangement as this 
can be regarded as possible under present conditions, 
if under any conditions, of human society; and it is 
doubtful whether there is lower fertility among the 
rich, when not voluntarily produced; and still more 
doubtful that this, if present, can be ascribed to high 
nutrition. 

That Doubleday's hypothesis does not explain recent 
events in the countries enumerated in Table H is evident 
from a study of the international facts. It is highly 
improbable, for instance, that the average nutrition of 
French wives is so much higher than that of Irish wives 
as to account for a difference in corrected birth-rates of 
21.6 and 36.1 per 1,000 of population; or to account 
for a difference between 28.4 and 35.7 in England and 
in Prussia respectively. The hypothesis similarly fails 
to explain the difference between the birth-rate in the 
cities and towns enumerated in Table I, and between 
these and the •birth-rates of the countries in which they 
are respectively situate. 

31 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



INVERSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INDIVIDUATION 

AND "GENESIS" 

Doubleday's incomplete hypothesis was criticised by 
Herbert Spencer * in the 'fifties. The complete truth 
according to him is that, as a necessity of evolution, 
fertility diminishes with that intellectual and moral 
development of the race which is comprised within the 
meaning of the word civilisation. Darwin similarly 
concluded that changed conditions of life have a re- 
markable and specific power of acting repressively on 
the reproductive system. It is however, doubtful, if, 
on a general scale, any inverse relationship whatever 
exists between cerebral development and the capacity 
of men and women to procreate. 

In sample experiences derived from Peerage and 
Baronetage lists, a reduction of families is shown in 
recent periods. Whethamf gives the results of a hun- 
dred fertile marriages for each decade from 1831 to 
1890, taken consecutively from those families who have 
held their title to nobility for at least two preceding 
generations : — 

Period. "No. of births to each fertile couple. 

1831—40 7.1 

1841—60 about 6.1 

1871—80 4.4 

1881—90 , 3.1 

* "A Theory of Population deduced from the General Law 
of Animal Fertility," by Herbert Spencer, 1852. 

t"The Family and the Nation," by W. C. D. and C. D. 
Whetham, 1909, p. 139. 



Causes of Reduction 



Thus during fifty years a stable upper class have re- 
duced their fertility by more than one-half. It can 
scarcely be argued reasonably that the state of nutri- 
tion or the intellectual capacity of parents so circum- 
stanced had so increased as to account for this result. 

After the data of the census of April, 1911, have be- 
come available, this question can be discussed with 
profit, because of the new inquiries which have been 
made as to fertility in different social strata, the re- 
sults of which will then be available. 

Meanwhile all the facts point to the conclusion that 



VOLITIONAL LIMITATION OF THE FAMILY 

is the chief and vastly predominant cause of the de- 
cline in the birth-rate which is taking place in so many 
countries. 

At a later stage the economic and other indirect 
causes which may have led to this voluntary restraint 
of fertility, and the possible effect of its differential 
operation on our national position will be considered. 
Meanwhile, it is necessary to establish the probability 
that the predominant cause of the decline in the birth- 
rate is volitional. 

That the practices thus indicated are widely prev- 
alent is well known. The extent to which this is the 
case can only be realised by those who have made in- 
quiries into the subject. The advertisement pages of 
daily and weekly newspapers give some enlightenment; 
and the testimony of experienced medical men shows 

33 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



how widespread is the use of artificial means for the 
prevention of conception. There are reasons for think- 
ing that the practice of producing abortion by the use 
of drugs or otherwise may also be increasing. 

In The Times, of October 16th, 1906, Mr. Sidney 
Webb gave the result of a voluntary confidential cen- 
sus among a class of " intellectuals," from which it 
appeared that of 120 marriages, 107 were " limited " 
and 13 "unlimited," the average number of children 
of each of these marriages being considerably under two. 
This is the only direct statistical evidence, so far as I 
know, on the subject. 

Mr. Webb also quoted (The Times, October 11th, 
1906) the experience of the Hearts of Oak Friendly 
Society, which gives a "lying-in benefit" of 30s. for 
each confinement of a member's wife. From 1866 to 
1880 the proportion of lying-in claims rose slowly from 
217 to 247 per 1,000; and then continuously declined 
from 1881 to 1904, when it reached only 117 per 1,000 
members. Even if large allowance be made for sources 
of statistical error, it is highly probable that in the 
family experience of this particular Friendly Society— 
which has over 272,000 adult male members — there has 
been a large decline in fertility. 

A similar change is seen in the experience of the 
Peerage quoted above. It is also seen in the experience 
of various countries and towns, as stated in preceding 
tables. 

This decline in the birth-rate might be due either 
to an increased number of sterile marriages or to smaller 
families. At present there are no English data en- 

34 



Causes of Reduction 



abling a distinction to be made between these two pos- 
sible causes of a low birth-rate; but French, Danish, 
Swedish, Australian and other statistics agree in show- 
ing that it is the latter with which we are chiefly, if 
not solely, concerned. If there were any widespread 
diminution of procreative power, an increased propor- 
tion of sterile marriages might reasonably be expected; 
and the fact that this has not occurred at once raises a 
presumption — confirmed by all the available facts — • 
that the fall in the birth-rate is principally due to causes 
within the control of the people. The same conclusion 
is confirmed by the fact that in countries under the 
influence of the Roman Catholic religion, which banns 
preventive measures against child-bearing, as in Ireland, 
and among the French Canadians, the corrected birth- 
rate remains high. 



35 



CHAPTER V 

INDIRECT FACTORS OP THE REDUCED BIRTH-RATE 

There is no reasonable doubt that the decline in the 
birth-rate, which is one of the most striking features 
of the last thirty years,* has been principally caused 
by volitional regulation of the size of the family. 
What are the influences which have led parents to regu- 
late the size of their families to an extent which has 
produced enormous declines in national birth-rates? 

The facts enable us to eliminate race and most social 
conditions except religion as having had more than an 
auxiliary influence in bringing about the effect under 
consideration ; and the influence of religion when mani- 
fested appears to have been exercised by inhibiting any 
action interfering with normal fertility. 

Poverty. — The influence of poverty is somewhat more 
difficult to unravel. The possible effect of poverty in 
keeping down excessive nutrition and in thus enabling 
the supposed inverse relationship between "individua- 
tion " and " genesis " to operate has already been dis- 
cussed. It is impossible to ascribe to any such influ- 
ence a large share in the enormous changes of fertility 
manifested during the last thirty years. 

* In England as a whole the birth-rate began to decline in 
1876, but in different parts of the country earlier or later than 
that year. Germany's decline began many years after that of 
England, while the decline in France dates back for a long 
series of years. 



Indirect Factors 



Industrial Conditions. — But if the generally higher 
standard of comfort now prevailing among the indus- 
trial classes has had no considerable effect in reducing 
fertility by physiological means, it may be that changes 
in economic condition, when combined with a more gen- 
erally disseminated knowledge of artificial means for 
limiting the family, have led to effective efforts in this 
direction ; while similar economic changes may not have 
had the same effect in earlier years, owing to the ab- 
sence of available information on the subject or the 
presence of a different standard of conduct, or owing to 
both of these causes. 

Knowledge as to artificial means for limiting the 
family has become widespread during the period in 
which the reduction of birth-rate in Great Britain has 
occurred. During the latter part of that period certain 
industrial and economic influences have been acting 
which might increase the wish to utilise the new knowl- 
edge. Among these, mention may be made of the re- 
lation between the fall in prices and in the birth-rate 
on which stress is laid by Mr. Udny Yule.* He draws 
attention also to the fact that the fall in the fertility rate 
was greater during 1891-1901 than for any previous dec- 
ade, and that this does not correspond with the course 
of prices; and suggests as a contributory cause the in- 
creasing pressure on the labour market. In the years 
before 1876 there had been a very high birth-rate; from 
thence onwards a rapid fall in the death-rate occurred, 
thus greatly increasing the supply of adults provided 

* " Journal Roy. Statistl. Soc." Vol. lxix., Pt. i., March, 
1906. 

37 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



by a given birth-rate. The increase at ages 20-55 of 
males in the population in successive decades is given 
by Mr. Yule as follows : — 

Increase in Each Decennium in the Number of 
Males aged 20-55 

Per. Cent. 

Increase in 1851-61 10 

" " 1861-71 : 12 

" " 1871-81 14 

" " 1881-91 14 

" " 1891-1901 19 

It has to be remembered in drawing inferences from 
the above figures that by the method adopted in pre- 
ceding tables the effect on the birth-rate of postpone- 
ment of, or abstinence from, marriage has been elimi- 
nated, and that what remains to be explained is the 
diminished fertility of married life at the ages of fer- 
tility. Hence, any effect which industrial pressure has 
produced on fertility will have been produced apart 
from involuntary physiological causes and most prob- 
ably through volitional control. 

Similar remarks apply to the special experience of 
textile towns like Huddersfield, Oldham, Bradford, 
Blackburn, Burnley, and Halifax, in which, between 
1881 and 1903, the corrected birth-rate declined 22, 24, 
2d, 32, 32, and 32 per cent, respectively. 

In the earlier years of these industries each child was 
his parents' savings-bank, from which savings could be 
drawn as soon as the child could go to the mill as a 

38 



Indirect Factors 



half-timer. Now the age at which the child's immature 
strength can be exploited has been retarded, and the 
child is a less profitable asset than in the past. The 
fact that families have become smaller in association 
with this retardation of children's work, and in associa- 
tion with the continuance of married women's work in 
mills, does not necessarily imply deterioration of the 
ideal of family life below that of the period of large 
families. The difference may be merely the difference 
between ignorance and knowledge of means for limiting 
the family. 

THE PROGRESSIVE DESIRES OF MANKIND 

In very many instances it may be unselfishness — 
possibly mistaken in its object — which has led to the 
limitation of the family. The head of the family, 
earning a limited wage, whose family budget is already 
scarcely within the parsimonious possibilities of the 
weekly wage, hesitates — and naturally hesitates — to add 
to the burden which he and, still more, his already over- 
burdened wife bear from day to day. 

And this desire to alleviate the burden of family life 
may be associated with a very proper desire to raise the 
standard of family life. The desires of mankind be- 
come more numerous and varied with each added pos- 
session. When these desires lead to interference with 
family life in persons who are able to meet the normal 
requirements of a normal family, selfishness may be re- 
garded as having become the chief motive. The in- 
creasing rarity of the altruism which welcomes the 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



burden and joy of family life, in those who are well 
able to bear it, is one of the most unfavourable features 
of the present day. The ideal of portions of the com- 
munity, especially of a large proportion of that part of 
it which has sufficient or abundant means, is one which 
is almost pagan in its outlook. Their sense of com- 
munal responsibility is undeveloped, and their main ob- 
ject appears to be " to warm both hands before the fire 
of life," but, as Mr. W. S. Lilly has remarked, with 
prudence so as not to burn their fingers. 

Over-prosperity may imply a serious moral danger. 
While among the artisan classes and among the even 
harder-pressed lower ranges of the commercial and pro- 
fessional classes there may be economic reasons tending 
towards restricted families,* the same excuse cannot be 
urged for those in easy circumstances. The reduced 
fertility in the prosperous classes named on page 32, is 
an instance in point ; and the lowered fertility in Berlin 
and Hamburg, representing pre-eminently the new Ger- 
many, prosperous and wealthy, shows that the Germans 
can no more resist the temptations of prosperity and 
luxury than ourselves. 

It would not be fair to omit from consideration what 
is probably one of the chief factors tending to restrict 
families. This is the desire of parents with small in- 
comes to educate their children more satisfactorily than 
they themselves were educated, and to give their chil- 
dren the means for rising in the social scale. 

* I do not say that this is the case, given proper distribu- 
tion of work and workers, and equitable distribution of the 
fruits of work. 

40 



Indirect Factors 



The motive here is far removed from that of the well- 
to-do who love ease and luxury and pursue it ; and how- 
ever much the supposed need for this regulated family 
may be deprecated in these instances, a harsh judgment 
in regard to it cannot be entertained. 



41 



OHAPTEB iVT 

POSSIBLE EFFECTS OF ALTERED DISTRIBUTION" OF FER- 
TILITY 

The contents of the preceding paragraphs naturally 
lead to a discussion of the influence of the present dis- 
tribution of the restricted birth-rate on national phy- 
sique, intellect, and character; after which a wider sur- 
vey may be taken of the tendencies to stagnation of popu- 
lation at present manifesting themselves. 

FERTILITY IN" RELATION TO SOCIAL STATUS 

Professor Karl Pearson has stated that 25 per cent, 
of the married population produce 50 per cent, of the 
next generation; and basing his conclusion on a com- 
parison between birth-rate and the proportion of (a) 
female domestic servants, (&) professional men, (c) gen- 
eral labourers, (d) pawnbrokers and general dealers, 
in a number of selected districts, Dr. David Heron, in 
a Drapers' Company Eesearch Memoir, has concluded 
that the intensity of relationship between undesirable 
social conditions and a high birth-rate has almost 
doubled in fifty years. 

Statistics like the above, and the unequal distribu- 
tion of the decline in the birth-rate illustrated in the 
preceding pages, have led Professor Pearson to say that 
"the mentally better stock in the nation is not repro- 
ducing itself at the same rate as of old — the less able 

42 



Possible Effects 



and the less energetic are the more fertile . . . for 
the last forty years the intellectual classes of the nation, 
enervated by wealth or by love of pleasure, or following 
an erroneous standard of life, have ceased to give in due 
proportion the men wanted to carry on the ever-growing 
work of the Empire." 

It is necessary to remember, however, (1) that the 
contribution to a future generation is not necessarily 
directly proportional to the birth-rate, but is governed 
by the excess of births over deaths before the reproduc- 
tive period of life; and (2) that special fitness to re- 
plenish the world is not a monopoly of class, but occurs 
in stocks which are found in every social stratum. 

THE VARYING CONTRIBUTION TO THE POPULATION AT 

CHILD-BEARING AGES FROM A GIVEN NUMBER 

OF BIRTHS 

I have shown elsewhere that there is no necessary re- 
lationship between large families and a high infant mor- 
tality.* In different counties of England and Wales 
coincidence of high and low birth-rates with low and 
high rates of infant mortality are to be found ; and the 
combined experience of forty-six counties is expressed 
in the fact that the co-efficient of correlation between 
their birth-rates and their infant death-rates for 1901-5 
was represented by the low fraction .36. The connec- 
tion often observed between a high birth-rate and a high 
rate of infant mortality is due in great part to the fact 
that large families are common among the poorest 

*" Report on Infant and Child Mortality" (Cd. 5263). 
43 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



classes, and these classes are especially exposed to the de- 
grading influences producing excessive infant mortality. 
The common association of circumstances of social 
inferiority with a high birth-rate implies similarly a 
smaller number of survivors to adult life than under 
better social conditions. This is illustrated by the fol- 
lowing examples from local life tables: — 

Of 1,000 Female Children - born in each District 
the Number of Survivors at each of the 
Following Ages svas : — 





Brighton 


Hampstead * 


Shoreditch* 


Age 


C1891-1900) 


| (1901-1905) 


(1901-1905) 





1,000 


1,000 


1,000 


15 


763 


859 


711 


25 


743 


844 


689 


35 


711 


821 


651 



* From Report of the Medical Officer of the County of 
London for 1907. 

It is evident that, out of a given number born, the 
contribution to the future adult population of a borough 
like Shoreditch, with a high birth-rate, is at a lower 
rate than that of districts like Hampstead and Brighton, 
in which the birth-rate is low. 

It may, however, be accepted as a fact that during re- 
cent years the population has, owing to the restriction 
of the birth-rate among other classes, been recruited in 
a somewhat increasing proportion from the wage-earn- 
ing classes. The wage-earning classes have always 

44 



Possible Effects 



formed a large majority of the total population; and 
their birth-rate in the future, as in the past, must de- 
termine the main composition of the people. The wage- 
earning population is the source, in the main, generation 
after generation, of the other classes of the community ; 
and it is well for those other classes that it is so. The 
mere fact then, that, so far as can be ascertained, these 
wage-earning classes are contributing an increasing pro- 
portion to the people, may be regarded with compla- 
cency, unless it can be shown further that the distri- 
bution of the birth-rate among wage-earners is unfa- 
vourable to the handing-on of their best qualities to fu- 
ture generations. The Table H of the geographical dis- 
tribution of corrected birth-rates gives some indications 
on this point. Dr. Heron's statistics, mentioned on p. 
42, tend to show, though not conclusively, on a consid- 
erable scale, that there is an increasing relationship be- 
tween a high birth-rate and "undesirable social condi- 
tions." If it be assumed that the careful artisan is 
beginning to adopt the policy of a restricted family, 
and that the unskilled labourer is not doing so, certain 
considerations will need to be borne in mind before re- 
garding the phenomenon in question with excessive ap- 
prehension. 

In the first place, such change in the distribution of 
the birth-rate as has occurred, has not, so far as we 
know, been going on for more than two generations, and 
to change the general character of a population a much 
longer period than this is required. 

In the next place, it has to be remembered that the 
condition of the poorest classes has greatly improved 

45 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



as compared with that of two generations ago. In the 
essentials of life, food, clothing, and housing, the con- 
ditions of the very poor are equal to those of the artisan 
early in the nineteenth century. The effect of such con- 
ditions will depend on the extent to which the poorest 
classes belong to an inferior type — whose social posi- 
tion has in the course possibly of generations resulted 
from their inferiority — and on the extent to which they 
are remediable by improved environment. This point 
is discussed later. 

POVERTY IN CHILDHOOD AND ADULT FITNESS 

Notwithstanding these considerations, it cannot be 
regarded as satisfactory that the birth-rate has declined 
to the greatest extent among those living in comfortable 
circumstances. 

In past centuries population was restrained by the 
positive checks of war, famine and pestilence. These 
checks, in civilised countries, have now been almost 
completely averted. Even now, however, direct checks 
on survival to adult life are acting, though to a greatly 
diminished extent. Among the chief of these are in- 
sufficient care in sickness, and defective nutrition of 
children. The effect of poverty can be seen in the fact 
that the rate of natural increase of the population (by 
excess of births over deaths) is not so much higher 
among the poor than among the well-to-do as it would 
be were the death-rates equal in the two classes. This 
higher death-rate among the poor undoubtedly implies 
also some physical inferiority of those who escape the 
risk of death. 

46 



Possible Effects 



The physical condition of the survivors to adult life 
under conditions of poverty is less satisfactory than 
that of survivors in populations of superior social posi- 
tion. The report (1882-3) of the Anthropometrical 
Committee appointed by the British Association in 1875 
showed clearly that a difference of 5 inches existed be- 
tween the average stature of the best and the worst 
nurtured classes of children of corresponding ages, and 
of 3J inches in adults. More recent observations among 
school children show similar differences. 

It is not improbable that corresponding differences 
in mental conditions are to be found. 

These statements, however, do not exhaust the prob- 
lem. The question remains whether these differences 
are inherent and more or less irremovable, or are due to 
unfavourable external conditions of life, and therefore 
preventible. 

FITNESS NOT A CLASS CHARACTERISTIC 

The answer, so far as physical fitness is concerned, 
may be contained in the anthropological view that there 
is a certain physical standard which is the inheritance 
of each race; and that although certain sections of the 
population may deviate from the average standard, for 
instance, as the result of the deterioration caused by 
poverty with its attendant ignorance, squalor and bad 
feeding, the deviation is not transmitted from genera- 
tion to generation. As the late Professor D. J. Cun- 
ningham put it : " To restore, therefore, the classes in 
which this inferiority exists, to the mean standard of 

47 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



national physique, all that is required is to improve the 
conditions of living, and in one or two generations the 
ground that has been lost will be recovered." 

If, then, on this hypothesis it were necessary for the 
population in the future to be recruited chiefly from the 
above stratum of society, there is no necessity to fear 
physical degeneration of the population if steps be taken 
to counteract the effects of poverty. Given appropriate 
social organisation, this is practicable. 

Whether this view represents the whole truth or only 
a portion of it, it cannot be said that measures for 
national improvement through influences affecting the 
environment have been exhausted, or, indeed, have be- 
gun to be fully utilised. They need to be extended on 
a large scale, while giving encouragement to measures 
tending to diminish the multiplication of the admittedly 
unfit. The time spent in bemoaning the disproportion- 
ate contribution to the population of the very poor, were 
better spent in promoting the more efficient prevention 
of destitution, while preventing the multiplication of the 
small minority having definitely heritable defects (see 
p. 51), and of those who will not or cannot support 
themselves and their families, and will not or cannot 
co-operate with the State in providing by insurance or 
otherwise for the days when unemployment or sickness 
renders self-support precarious. 

The question of intellectual fitness is more difficult. 
Much evidence has been adduced tending to the con- 
clusion that certain social strata manifest a much higher 
proportion of intellectual ability than others. The 

48 



Possible Effects 



statement — given that success in life is a satisfactory- 
test — is beyond dispute. But the interpretation of the 
facts is open to doubt. The fact that the children of 
the successful emerge above a given datum line, taken 
as the line of success, may be regarded as being due to 
inherent family qualities. It is also open to the ex- 
planation that the continued family success may be due, 
in at least a high proportion of the total cases, to the 
favourable environment of the children of the able, to 
their possession of all the means of training for success, 
and to the opportunities and advantages secured by a 
public school and University career, as well as by the 
successful position of the father. 

There are doubtless families of exceptional ability, 
for whom the occurrence of an auxiliary favourable en- 
vironment is a matter of minor importance. But even 
the greatest ability may fail through lack of favouring 
circumstances; and it is impossible to say how many 
mute inglorious Miltons may have failed to be discov- 
ered. The fact that the poorest are lowest in the social 
scale cannot be used as a completely satisfactory argu- 
ment that — as proved by selection — they are the poorest 
stock. The results, so far as they are concerned, may 
have been biased by conditions that have thwarted nat- 
ural competence. Obviously the word " success " in 
this connection is used in an artificial sense. Success 
in a better sense comes to the majority of the total popu- 
lation in opportunity and ability to exercise craftsman- 
ship, intelligence and moral worth. 

No statistics free from the errors due to varying 
49 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



circumstances appear to be possible as to the relative 
ability of different classes. The history of the many 
who, notwithstanding social disadvantages, have at- 
tained to the highest positions in law, medicine, the 
Church, or in other branches of the work of the State, 
shows the need for caution in drawing conclusions as 
to the social distribution of ability. The only state- 
ment that is certainly true is that both intellectual and 
physical fitness are a function of stock, not of class. 

Summarising the preceding facts, it may be accepted 
that the birth-rate at present is disproportionately high 
among the wage-earning and probably also among the 
poorest classes. Also that this implies the survival of 
a disproportionate number who are relatively ill-fed, ill- 
nourished, and brought up under conditions rendering 
them less fitted to become serviceable citizens. But 
(a) the present altered distribution of the birth-rate 
is only known to have been occurring for two genera- 
tions; (&) the conditions of life of the poorest are stead- 
ily having more attention devoted to them, and there 
is good reason to expect that in two additional genera- 
tions their possibilities of health will be still further 
improved; and (c) it is not certain that the average 
inherent mental and physical qualities of the majority 
of the wage-earning classes are not equal to those of 
the rest of the population, though there may possibly 
be some meausure of inherent inferiority among a sec- 
tion of the poorest of the population. 



50 



Possible Effects 



THE INHERITANCE OF DEFECTS 

So far the question has been discussed as one chiefly 
of inheritance of physical and mental competence. It 
is, perhaps, more strictly a question of inheritance of 
defects. Such defects are undoubtedly sometimes he- 
reditary, and the discouragement of parenthood among 
the unsound is an important function of public opinion, 
if not also of the State as such, which has hitherto been 
much neglected. 

When such defects as, for instance, feeble-mindedness, 
or a strong family history of insanity are discovered, it 
is highly desirable that their propagation to another 
generation should be prevented.* 

At every step, accurate conclusions are made difficult 
by the absence of complete records; but it is doubtful 
whether such cases as the above form more than a small 
proportion of the total population of our workhouses 
or prisons. Striking family histories have been pub- 
lished, in which related persons have, generation after 
generation, been supported by the public, either as 
paupers, or in asylums or prisons. But we do not know 
to what extent these results would have occurred had the 

* It should be noted that Dr. W. Bateson, speaking recently 
on the eugenics of Mendelism, warned his audience of the 
need for caution in forbidding marriage in any case except 
where feeble-mindedness or some such defect was so marked 
as to render the individual certain to produce children of his 
own type. We may conclude that an indispensable pre- 
condition of any attempt to apply practically the important 
principles of eugenics, in regard to any particular disease or 
defect, must be the collection of evidence on a sufficiently 
large scale which justifies intervention. 

51 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



children been efficiently protected from an obviously 
evil environment. Pauperism and crime are probably 
truly hereditary in only a small proportion of their 
total amount. If this be so, the possibility of their con- 
trol becomes an easier problem. For the majority it 
is highly probable that if the community gives the chil- 
dren a fair chance of success, in the reasonable belief 
that the expense will not be a recurring expense, this 
expenditure will be more than justified by results. 



52 



CHAPTER VII 

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL FORECASTS 
Will the Restricted Birth-Rate Become General? 

Assuming, as is likely, that the conditions of the poor 
and the opportunities of success for their children will 
steadily improve, the jeremiads of those who deplore 
the evil possibilities involved in the differential deduc- 
tion of the birth-rate are not likely to be justified. 
Within two generations of the profoundly important 
changes which have produced this differentiation, it 
is too early to indulge in pessimism, even were the vast 
assumptions involved in such pessimism to be estab- 
lished. A reduction of human fertility has taken place 
in this country implying a reduction in the crude birth- 
rate of England and Wales of over 28 per cent, between 
1877 and 1909. Will the proportion of the population 
hitherto unaffected by this influence continue to escape ? 
Is it not more reasonable to assume that knowledge in 
their case will be followed by action, as it has been al- 
ready among the artisans of Halifax, Burnley, Bradford, 
Leicester, Derby and Northampton, and to a less ex- 
tent in many other towns? 

It is easy to assert that among the poorest there is 
no stimulus to the " providence " which shows itself in 
small families. Their infants may be fed from a mu- 
nicipal milk-depot, and subsequently receive free din- 

53 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



ners as well as free schooling, and he helped at every 
stage. Would that this were more generally true, un- 
til labour is more systematically decasualised, and a 
more effective control is exercised over self-indulgent 
parents who neglect their children. But, under present 
circumstances, experience among the poor shows what 
an enduring self-denial, often to an heroic extent, the 
life of the mother of a large family of small children 
in a poor home implies. It has many compensations; 
it can bring out the noblest qualities, both in mother 
and in children. But it is highly improbable that the 
younger married woman of the class to which the mother 
thus sorely tried belongs will, with increasing knowledge, 
refrain from following the example of the married wo- 
man who — without the excuse or justification which the 
heavily taxed mother in a poor family may claim — has 
chosen the path of self-indulgence. 

We may then, I think, in the absence of new and at 
present invisible influences to the contrary, look for an 
extension of the practice of voluntary restriction of 
families, and possibly also to a relatively stagnant popu- 
lation like that of France. 

INTERNATIONAL CONSEQUENCES OF A RESTRICTED BIRTH- 
RATE 

It cannot be regarded as a matter of indifference 
whether the unfilled portions of the world shall be 
peopled by Eastern races (Chinese, Japanese, Hindoos, 
etc.), by negroes, by Sclavonic or other Eastern Euro- 
pean peoples, by the Latin races, or by the races of 

54 



Forecasts 

Northern Europe. Experiments on a gigantic scale in 
the fusion and multiplication of races are going on in 
the United States, and more recently in Canada, in 
which all well-wishers of the best civilisation must be 
intensely interested; and the problems of South Africa 
and Australasia are only less important than those of 
the American continent. The conditions of the prob- 
lem, especially in view of the increasing refusal of 
western Europeans, Americans and Australians to multi- 
ply to a normal extent, are becoming artificially biased. 
In North America it may be a question not only of 
black and white, but also of Sclavonic races against 
Anglo-Saxons; in Australia, and possibly also in the 
American continent, it may become a question of Mon- 
golian against European races. The problems suggested 
by current events do not appear likely, so far as can be 
seen, to be solved in the course of the next few genera- 
tions by the adoption of the policy of the restricted 
family by the countries and races not at present adopt- 
ing the practices leading to this result ; though the cur- 
rent experience of Germany, which is now increasingly 
following the lead of France and England in this re- 
spect, makes the need for caution in forecasting obvious. 
It is impossible to follow further the speculations 
suggested by such considerations as the above. Every 
Briton will wish that his race may have a preponderant 
share in shaping the future destinies of mankind. Al- 
though it appears certain that English-speaking races 
will exercise this predominating influence — the course 
of events in North America, in Australasia and South 

55 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



Africa, points to this conclusion — these English-speak- 
ing countries, unless the trend of events is changed, will 
become occupied by Anglo-Saxons to a relatively dimin- 
ishing extent. We must not, however, blind ourselves 
to the dangers of prophecy. 

UNCONFIRMED FORECASTS 

History is studded with forecasts which events have 
falsified, of fears and pleasurable anticipations which 
have not come true. 

The population question, in particular, is one in which 
thoughtful men have alternatively been racked by fears 
of depopulation or, at least, stagnation of population 
and of the excessive growth of population. Until the 
end of the Napoleonic wars, the most prevalent fear 
was that men would fail for fighting and oak would 
fail for the building of ships of war. Nelson particu- 
larly commended the planters of oak trees, as did Na- 
poleon the parents of large families. There were not 
wanting those who defended the old Poor Law, because 
it enabled the labourer to marry early and breed quickly. 

On the contrary, when the fears raised by Malthus 
led would-be benefactors of the species to urge upon 
the labourers to make pause in increasing the supply 
of labourers, Carlyle derided the possibility of this con- 
tingency in the following words: — 

" Millenniums are undoubtedly coming, must come 
one way or the other: but will it be, think you, 
by twenty millions of working people simulta- 
56 



Forecasts 

neously striking work in that department; pass- 
ing, in universal trades-union, a resolution not 
to beget any more till the labour market become 
satisfactory ? " 

And yet artisans have begun, in many towns partially, 
to make pause in the direction indicated in the above 
quotation; and labourers may hereafter follow this ex- 
ample. 

The first half of the nineteenth century was filled with 
fears of the consequences of the working out of 
Malthus's hypothesis. From 1890 onwards, our jour- 
nals have been largely occupied with forecasts based on 
the decreasing birth-rate. It may be that unforeseen 
changes in the trend of events will occur; that, for in- 
stance, as difficulty in securing workers increases, the 
increased economic prospects of children will once more 
tend to be followed by large families. But in regard 
to this, it has to be borne in mind that a new factor, 
the association of marriage with volitional control of 
fertility, has entered into the problem; and it appears 
more likely, under present ethical conditions, that per- 
sonal comfort will carry more weight than roseate pros- 
pects for prospective children. 



57 



CHAPTER VIII 

SOME POSSIBILITIES OP ACTION 

The objects of this contribution have been to state the 
problem under consideration, the reduced birth-rate, to 
trace its causes, and to discuss its possible national and 
international effects. It would be proper to close with 
the fulfilment of this task. When it is considered that 
the matter in question affects a large proportion of the 
total population of a number of great countries, and that 
it has been produced — unless the evidence lies — in the 
main by the volition of the peoples concerned, the in- 
evitable conclusion appears to be that no change in the 
distribution of the birth-rate and no increase in its 
magnitude can be secured except by alteration of the 
popular will. 

In regard to the feeble-minded, the intermittently in- 
sane, and possibly the chronically dependent, it may be 
hoped that public opinion will ere long demand that 
these should not be permitted to multiply. It may even 
be hoped that social pressure will be exercised towards 
diminishing multiplication in families which are non- 
supporting. 

Apart from these immediate exceptions the best dis- 
tribution of the birth-rate can only be secured by the 
exercise of public opinion, which has an undoubted effect 
on individual conduct. 

Public opinion might possibly operate directly. It is 
58 



Possibilities of Action 



more likely to be successful, in the near future, if di- 
rected towards a change in the luxurious and extravagant 
habits which are so widespread. In every station of 
life there is seen a struggle to keep up appearances and 
a tendency to ape the luxuries of the more wealthy. 
Preaching and teaching, and still more, the force of 
example, which would induce the rich to realise that 
they may be responsible, by their manner of life, for 
extravagance in others, would be most valuable. Even 
though it is not likely that we shall see any revival of 
former sumptuary laws, it may be hoped that a whole- 
some public opinion will act in the direction of restraint 
of lavish living, even among those who can afford it. 
The desire for " society " and pleasure is an important 
factor in reducing the birth-rate and in spoiling family 
life. 

The desire of parents to leave their children well 
provided for may be more tenderly dealt with, though, 
given a good start in life, it is doubtful whether in the 
majority of instances the knowledge that money will 
subsequently be inherited is not an impediment to suc- 
cess in life. 

Perhaps even more important is definite teaching of 
the privilege of parenthood. There are great possibil- 
ities of educational work in this direction, and public 
opinion can exercise an equally important influence. 

Along with this should be pointed out the undesir- 
ability of small families, and especially of families in 
which there is only one child. The "one chick" is 
apt to be self-conscious and selfish; is often unhappy, 

69 



The Declining Birth-Rate 



and the cause of much unhappiness to others through- 
out his or her life. 

During recent years proposals have been made in the 
direction of the endowment of motherhood. That 
child-bearing among the wage-earning classes may be 
normal, and that the infant born may have a reasonably 
good prospect of survival and of healthy life, conditions 
are needed during the later months of pregnancy, and 
after the birth of the infant, which often are lacking. 
The State has made certain efforts in improving matters, 
by regulating the hours of industrial labour of women, 
by paying for medical aid during confinement under 
certain conditions, by forbidding industrial labour for 
four weeks after confinement, by securing the early noti- 
fication of births, and the visits of advice of health visi- 
tors. More recently the State, in the National Insur- 
ance Bill of 1911, proposes to contribute towards, the 
maternity expenses of insured women and of the wives 
of insured men. All this — and, doubtless, other allied 
and extended proposals, will follow — implies the recog- 
nition of the State that it is vitally concerned in the 
conditions under which infants are procreated, born, 
and reared. 

I have purposely said little on the ethical aspects of 
the problem of artificial limitation of families. It does 
not appear possible for such a policy to be pursued on a 
large scale without moral loss to the community. That, 
however, is not my subject. My task is completed now 
that I have set out, so far as I can, the facts and condi- 
tions of the problem of population. 

60 



JAN 8 1912 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



JAN 8 1912 



